Murray Rothbard

“Far away from Congress is the real forgotten man, the taxpayer who foots the bill… For if human liberty is to survive in America, we must win the battle to restore honest money.”

“the paper money disease here may take many years to run its course…but when that day arrives, our political rulers will probably find that foreign war and ruthless regimentation is the cunning alternative to domestic strife.”

Warren Buffett has famously supported the Obama administration and other Democrats, even lending his name to the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which calls for raising income taxes on high earners. As such, it may surprise you to learn that a key person in Warren Buffett’s life was an ardent proponent of political views diametrically opposed to those of the “Oracle of Omaha.”

111 years ago today, Warren’s father Howard Homan Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett, like his son Warren, worked in the investment business, but also served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943-1949 and then again from 1951-1953, as an anti-New Dealer, anti-Fair Dealer and overall anti-interventionist of the Republican “Old Right.” Politically, it could be said that Buffett was the Ron Paul of his day.

Buffett even corresponded with leading libertarian Murray Rothbard, asking Rothbard in one letter where he might be able to procure a copy of his “The Panic of 1819,” so that he could pass it along to his son.

Someone once wrote that criticizing economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is the internet’s favorite pastime. I, too, have engaged in the sport – with no success of changing what Robert Higgs calls the “vulgar Keynesianism” that dirties the Grey Lady’s editorial page. To the betterment of my pride, nobody else has had much luck in the arena of ideas either. Krugman continues to carry the torch of excuses for the Democratic Party while lampooning the bigoted, racist, old, white, and rich GOP.All along, the Princeton prof has stayed true to the cause of aggressive government action to forestall the downtrodden economy. Large fiscal expenditures, aggressive monetary stimulus, increased legal privileges for organized labor, and boosting the degree of state pillaging – Krugman is the caricature of a tyrannical apologizer who will defend the cause of rampant statism at any cost. He has been accused of being a communist, socialist, a Democratic shill, and every other leftist insult that might exist. Much of this is done in a tongue-and-cheek style. Still, the underlying charge of Krugman being a vehement statist willing to justify any and all government action remains accurate. Basically, there is little activity Uncle Sam could do that he wouldn’t approve of.

But now, it appears Krugman has gone overboard with his progressive moaning. In a recent column, he laments, once again, over the fact that some people make more money than others. The wealth inequality canard – which is favored by every leftist under the sun – has become a tiresome ploy at this point. I think Krugman knows this, so he proceeds to justify his indignation by bringing some new evidence into the mix. Now things start getting interesting.

JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs: Why the Market Was Down for 7 Days in a Row

We are witnessing an epic battle between two banking giants, JPMorgan Chase (Paul Volcker) and Goldman Sachs (Geithner/Summers/Rubin). Left strewn on the battleground could be your pension fund and 401K.

The late Libertarian economist, Murray Rothbard, wrote that U.S. politics since 1900, when William Jennings Bryan narrowly lost the presidency, has been a struggle between two competing banking giants, the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The parties would sometimes change hands, but the puppeteers pulling the strings were always one of these two big-money players. No popular third party candidate had a real chance at winning, because the bankers had the exclusive power to create the national money supply and therefore held the winning cards.

In 2000, the Rockefellers and the Morgans joined forces, when JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan merged to become JPMorgan Chase Co. Today the battling banking titans are JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that gained notoriety for its speculative practices in the 1920s. In 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp., a closed-end fund similar to a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed in the stock market crash of 1929, marring the firm’s reputation for years afterwards. Former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers all came from Goldman, and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rose through the ranks of government as a Summers/Rubin protégé. One commentator called the U.S. Treasury “Goldman Sachs South.”